Notts County got their pre-season fixture schedule underway with a 3-0 victory over non-league side Nuneaton Borough as Luke Williams trialled different line-ups in each half.
Macaulay Langstaff, Cedwyn Scott and Jim O’Brien were all on the scoresheet for the Magpies, who fielded some youth players in the absence of first-teamers Sam Slocombe, Aden Baldwin, Sam Austin, Will Randall and Junior Morias left out as a precaution.
Notts dominated proceedings but the overall performance and result will not be the biggest concern of Williams at this stage, as he looks to get minutes in the legs of as many players as possible at the start of pre-season.
County have two tough friendlies at Meadow Lane to come against higher-league opposition in Stoke City and Nottingham Forest, so he will want his team properly prepared for those games in order to get an accurate representation of where the team is at this stage.
Some important players were missing at Nuneaton, but at the very least Williams got to see three of his four new additions in action for the first time, with Aidan Stone playing the full game in goal, Dan Crowley the first half and David McGoldrick the second with all making a good start to life at the club.
Williams said: “It’s difficult to read too much into a game like this with it being our first one with a few new faces and some of the young guys coming to help us out. I’m glad we came through it with some good performances, but for anyone who didn’t perform, it’s not a big problem for me.
“We don’t want to completely rip up everything we did last season, so there will be continuation but there have to be some changes during pre-season for us to look at different options.
“It was nice to see some similarities from where we left off and with the new players looking like they can understand how to play with the other guys that have been here longer was all very pleasing.”
